Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Brian Bixler, We Hardly Knew Ye

Actually, we knew ye all too well. Bixler was another one of those terrible draft picks by Dave Littlefield who had no plate discipline whatsoever, but had a little pop and was fast. There were worse second round picks by DL (Ahem! Mike Felix), but Bixler was the one who was continually rammed down our throats as the replacement for Jack Wilson. All I have to say is in the past two years at the ML level, Bixler had 166 PA with 62 SO and 8 BB... That is extraordinarily awful (5% BB rate and a 40.8% K rate).

In so doing, the Pirates opened up a spot on the 40-man roster for new reliever Brendan Donnelly (read up on him here), and more unbelievably, get something interesting back from the Indians. Jesus Brito finished fifth among all minor leaguers by hitting .353. My work has already been done for me at BucsDugout, who looks at the deal as a steal. My take is: yes, he was a little old for his leagues and he doesn't have a position, but he has room to fill out and he has excellent plate discipline. All in all, I just pray he makes it all the way to Pittsburgh so we can make tee shirts that say, "Nobody fucks with the Jesus."